Obviously your main source of ginger shouldn’t be in a cookie, but it’s always nice to get some healing food benefits whatever you’re eating. Even cookies shouldn’t be considered junk food, actually “junk” by nature is not something we should consider eating..but that’s none of my business. 😉

Arrowroot, almonds, pastured butter and rapadura make up the rest of the ingredients.

Arrowroot is a nutritious food obtained from the fleshy root stock of a tropical American plant. It is an easily digested food well fitted for infants and convalescents. It was once widely used in baby formulas having shown it agreed with babies better than any other starch or sugar. The reason being that it is the only starch with a calcium ash. In this regard, the calcium chloride, in the form of calcium found in arrowroot starch, is very important for the maintenance of proper acid and alkali balances in the human body. Royal Lee, DDS Journal of the National Academy of Research Biochemists

I use arrowroot for gravies, custards, any recipe that calls for corn starch, and even when I make puppy chow! I love knowing the health benefits and considering that I have three little kids that benefit greatly from arrowroot instead of gut damaging corn starch, it’s such a great and easy switch! I’ve also noticed that many small town grocers usually have it in stock these days. The more we demand healthy food and vote with our dollar the more the grocers will supply it! 😀

But on to the recipe! You can get all the ingredients from the list below as well.

(Please note that these are affiliate links, by purchasing anything through these links I make a small commission at no additional cost to you, thanks for your support! Also, from Black Friday to Christmas I will be donating all of my affiliate sales commissions to our church, who go above and beyond helping the the less fortunate all year long!)

Almond Flour (For maximum health benefits it is best to buy raw almonds and soak to neutralize the phytic acid. However I dont have a food processor to make said almonds into a flour, and since I don’t make these often I just buy almond flour. If you consume almond flour regularly that would be a worthy investment for sure! Best of the best and my personal recommendation is this vitamix, but this ninja pro has great reviews and is a more affordable option.

I’ve written a few posts about some traditional recipes and nourishing foods. Many of which contain butter, whole milk, grass fed beef etc. According to the USDA, though, the a fore mentioned foods are the cause of heart disease, cancer, obesity etc. So why are liver, red meat, and butter being touted as super foods in traditional food circles? This isn’t my opinion. No, I’m not trying to convince myself I’m eating healthy so I can feel good about eating these things. Though that would be oddly hilarious. Our bodies need these healing foods. I’ve personally felt the affects of eating a traditional foods diet, especially with having three children. And now that I have been on a mostly traditional diet for about 4 years, I can personally attest to the affects it has had for me. For one I’ve always had a bad cough, my whole life, as well as asthma. During high school my cough and breathing was so bad I was consciously aware of my breathing at sleep overs as it was something that has been pointed out to me several times before. When I was 19 a doctor told me I needed to start taking it seriously and take my inhaler regularly. I scoffed at her. I know, I was a bit arrogant. But I scoffed because I believed in the power of food and traditional remedies. I thought to myself, “I wasn’t going to become dependent on an inhaler”! Truthfully though, I actually hadn’t even thought of my cough and asthma until a few years ago and realized that it hasn’t been around lately. At the time I had no idea about “traditional food” and truly nourishing diets. I thought I was being healthy by making egg white omelettes, eating whole wheat bread, and lean meat and all my veggies.

Then I got pregnant. Anyone who knows me knows I dig deep. My motto has always been give it your all or don’t waste your time. I’m a bit perfectionist type-a, obsessed with finding the truth in everything kind of gal. So when I became pregnant, I felt lost. So I started reading. And reading. And reading. I don’t remember the exact trail, but I know the book that opened a whole new can of worms for me. Beautiful Babies, by Kristen Michaelis. I pre ordered it actually. An easy, yet essential read for just about everyone, but especially mothers. (My opinion.)

And now, almost 5 years later, here I am. The truths I’ve discovered I am so passionate about sharing because I have personally lived and believe they truly affect every aspect of your life. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost. We should respect and care for our bodies to the best of our abilities. That includes how you feed it. Food affects, mood, health, strength, and happiness and it can even affects the future health of your children and if they’ll have diseases and teeth problems! As the saying goes, you cannot pour from an empty cup. As a mother, this is even more important. We have the single most important jobs. And one chance. God gave us the children he had planned for us. Their unique, impressionable souls will be formed based on how they were parented. And how we parent is too often based on how we feel, we’re only human after all. Are we fulfilling His will for us by not giving ourselves and our family good nourishment? I love my children with all that I am. I absolutely rely on God’s grace to teach me how to be the mother he intended me to be. But God helps those who help themselves also. If I eat poorly I will in accordance act poorly, think poorly, and give back to my children poorly. I don’t want to be grumpy, tired, moody or sick for all of their lives. I want the best for them and I want to give the best of me to them, so they can give the best of themselves back to God, for the betterment of the world and of course, always for God’s glory. Full circle.

That being said, I believe that each of us, in doing the best that we can, God will fill in the gaps. I would probably be crazy if it wasn’t for our faith. There is so much out of my control, environmental toxins, foods we eat when we’re away from home, while on vacation, or not even being able to have the best at home, depleted soils, polluted water. I could go on. It seems hopeless. Why even try? The truth is I know God will take care of us. We still need to take care of ourselves, and there is an effort that goes with that. For me that looks like going down the road for eggs instead of picking them up at the store, ordering food online, taking time to prepare foods ahead of time, not to mention the learning curve. One step at a time. I control what I can, and let God handle all the rest. Having a good attitude and work ethic is important, stressing and worrying would negate the benefits though. I only expound upon this, because there was a time where I started to make a “god” out of food and treat my diet like a dogma. I started to get too freaked out about everything wrong and everything I can’t control. Now, I can eat a piece of white bread without fretting I’m going to die, I even enjoy it for nostalgia’s sake. Just not often. My point, learn about a traditional diet, feel great for yourself, so you can give back to God, your family,and community all that you were called to! But don’t stress what is out of your control.

Traditional Food and Dr. Price’s Studies’

For my visual friends I wanted to show you a comparison. The following two pictures are 2 food pyramids. The USDA food pyramid. And the Weston Price based food pyramid.

I don’t plan on going into the differences as that is pretty obvious.

I do want to share a little about Dr. Weston Price and give him some credibility for anyone who doesn’t know him. He was a dentist from the early 20th century. After an influx of patients, mostly children, coming in with rotten teeth and dental cavities, and seeing that these were first generation problems as the parents to these children were perfectly healthy with great teeth: He left his practice to travel the world with his wife. The following is an excerpt from the introduction to his book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. (It’s worthy to note that he wrote this book to be understood by the public and medical field alike. If you’re feeling up to a life changing read, don’t think you won’t be able to understand it and go for it!)

This text provides a new approach to some modern problems of modern degeneration. Instead of the customary procedure of analyzing the expressions of degeneration, a search has been made for groups to be used as controls who are largely free from these affections.

After spending several years approaching this problem by both clinical and laboratory research methods, I interpreted the accumulating evidence as strongly indicating the absence of some essential factors from our modern program, rather than the presence of injurious factors. This immediately indicated the need for obtaining controls. To accomplish this it became necessary to locate immune groups which were found readily as isolated remnants of primitive racial stocks in different parts of the world. A critical examination of these groups revealed a high immunity to many of our serious affections so long as they were isolated from our modern civilization and living in accordance with the nutritional programs which were directed by the accumulated wisdom of the group. In every instance where individuals of the same racial stocks who had lost this isolation and who had adopted the foods and food habits of our modern civilization were examined, there was an early loss of the high immunity characteristics of the isolated group. …

These investigations have been made among the following primitive racial stocks including both isolated and modernized groups: the Swiss of Switzerland, the Gaelic’s in the Outer and Inner Hebrides, the Eskimos of Alaska, the Indians in the far North, West, and Central Canada, Western United States and Florida, the Melanesians and Polynesians on eight archipelagos of the Southern Pacific, tribes in eastern and central Africa, the Aborigines of Australia, Malay tribes on Islands north of Australia, the Maori of New Zealand and the ancient civilizations and their descendants in Peru both along the coast and in the Sierras, also in the Amazon Basin.

I want to point out that Weston Price, accompanied by his wife, Florence, traveled to all of these remote locations, on their own dime, recorded his findings, by journal and photograph to distinguish the immediate affects the modern diets had. Take a look at all the places they traveled. This was not easy going. The studies he performed are one of a kind and should be taught in the greatest medical schools the world over! You can’t monopolize on “accumulated wisdom” passed down from generation to generation though. I digress. My only point is, he should be a hero in the medical field. He did this because he wanted to solve a problem, not because he wanted to get rich.

While the primary quest was to find the cause of tooth decay which was established quite readily as being controlled directly by nutrition, it rapidly became apparent that a chain of disturbances developed in these various primitive racial stocks starting even in the first generation after the adoption of the modernized diet and rapidly increased in severity with expressions quite constantly like the characteristic degenerative processes of our modern civilization of America and Europe.

You guys, that’s HUGE! Can you imagine what these isolated groups, what our ancestors must have felt like! Disease, poor mental health, even colicy babies and common colds did not exist. “..after the adoption of the modernized diet and rapidly increased in severity with expressions quite constantly like the characteristic degenerative processes of our modern civilization of America ..” Increased in severity? Imagine how far much more severe it’s gotten? We are now to the point where poor health is expected and normal. Do we even know what an epitome of health might look like? I wonder sometimes.

While tooth decay has proved to be almost entirely a matter of the nutrition of the individual at the time prior to the activity of that disease, a group of affections have expressed themselves in physical form. These have included facial and dental arch changes.

No era in the long journey of mankind reveals in the skeletal remains such a terrible degeneration of teeth and bones as this brief modern period records.

As Joel Salatin so beautifully says, folks, this ain’t normal. <—-(side note, another great book!)

In his studies of all the isolated primitives, he found they shared a certain similarity. That was the presence of what he labeled as activator-x. Today, we now know that what he found that each race had, was vitamin k2. For some great ways to get more K2 in your diet pronto check out the following list. It’s worth your while to spend a little more energy and possibly moolah to get high quality of the following items. Grass-fed/pastured/farm fresh etc.

Foods rich in vitamin K2 play a big and healthful part of the traditional diet, and increasing the above mentioned foods and also trying to get the best possible sources of those foods would be a great move in the name of health! A traditional diet is other wise very similar to a whole foods diet, except that you would prepare by soaking, sprouting, fermenting grains, nuts, and legumes. And adding a daily dose of fermented vegetables with at least one meal. Think a tablespoon of homemade sauerkraut or a fermented pickle (be on the lookout as I add my favorite fermented veggie recipes that are even kid approved!)

For some inspiration and to hopefully display that it doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive I wanted to show a typical day in the way of meals. I wanted to include the less expensive recipes that are still very nutritious.

Breakfast

Soaked bread with grass-fed butter and honey or jam and a “dippy egg” as my kids call them, aka eggs over easy.

Who loves the holidays?!

I do! I love Thanksgiving dinner, and family traditions, and all the hard work that my mom and grandma and aunts always put into our meals growing up, and since I finally had my own Thanksgiving dinner where I did all the cooking, I can appreciate it even more! It’s hard work!

The more I learn about food politics, and ingredients, and where our food comes from though, it gets harder and harder to turn a blind eye when I’m doing my grocery shopping for Thanksgiving/Christmas/Easter etc.! So last year, when I had my own Thanksgiving dinner, I decided I was going to make our traditional family Thanksgiving meal, that is, with ALL the family faves, real foodified! 100% healthful ingredients. Because lets face it, old habits die hard and the heart wants what the heart wants. And when someone brings cubed seasoned squash *in place* of stuffing, or forgets the mashed potatoes, it does not go over well in a crowd. Good thing for us, though, this is no compromise, but an improvement! Get the family favorites, minus the terrible ingredients, and you’ve got yourself one healthy, feel good dinner your family and friends will feel good about during, and after the meal! Sans the typical “after meal” groans of poisonous ingredients taking their effect as they make their way through your body wreaking havoc on your microbiome, hormones, and mental health, while your children are going wild from red# 40 aka Cherry Fluff salad. I know, I know, you’re welcome.

I found many of these recipes on pinterest. Some I followed pretty closely, others, were more like guidelines. You know how sometimes you wait all day for the main meal, snacking on sweets and veggie trays and sneaking tastes in here and there, and when dinner rolls around you feel a bit let down..whether the snacking ruined your appetite, or realizing that a childhood favorite dish isn’t as good as you remember it? I’m here to tell you that these recipes were nothing like that! Every bite I had was so good it quite literally made my mouth water…as I was eating. I know, a bit slobbish sounding, but, it was just so good! And the best news? The recipes are not complicated in the least! As I said, these are my family favorites and from what I’ve seen are pretty typical of the mid western Thanksgiving dinners I’ve been too!

So with out further ado, I present to you my Thanksgiving menu and the recipes I originally found that helped me create a healthy, real food menu. This year I plan on writing down exactly what I do and hopefully exactly what I do, is exactly what I did last year, so I can share my original recipes with you all some day. In the mean time, these are also too legit to quit!

Real Food Thanksgiving Menu Recipe Round-Up!

Turkey

I feel like no one ever follows a turkey recipe. You brine it in good stuff. You baste it and cook it. My hubs likes to smoke his after brining it for two days. I wouldn’t know how to do all that. And obviously you have to have a smoker. Even if you don’t though, dont skip the brine. It’s uhhhhmazing, and more than worth the trouble of following a recipe for cooking a turkey.

Sourdough Stuffing

Sourdough stuffing is my absolute favorite! I always wing it when I make mine, but manage to nail it every time. Ain’t no thang! I love that savory, semi tangy, home cooked taste. I’ll write my recipe someday.. maybe even next Thursday! One thing I always use, though, is good, traditionally fermented sourdough bread, homemade chicken broth, and sage and salt and pepper to taste. If you use these things I just feel like you can’t go wrong. That’s the beauty of real food, there’s so much flavor that it’s just a matter of arranging it. With sourdough bread, and homemade broth, this is a healthy, and healing dish that is like one big hug! The recipe listed is pretty close to what I do, except as a Thanksgiving side, I would never add mushrooms to my stuffing. Personal preference.

Green Bean Casserole

This is a pretty big hit in our family. However, growing up we used cream of mushroom soup which is full of MSG, GMOs, and natural flavors, as well as french fried onions out of a can which are full of rancid oils and coated with white flour breading. A recipe of disaster really. Last year I considered going with out this beloved dish, then I thought about it. And I thought; cream of mushroom soup, fried onions? Buy some cream and mushrooms and saute them in butter, fry onions in some arrowroot flour and coconut oil, were good to go. However, after a little digging, I found this recipe that took the guess work out of it all. It is soo good, guys! Don’t buy those nasty cans of cream of mushroom soup. Preferably grass-fed /organic cream, a pile of mushrooms, you will not believe… fresh fried red onion in healthy coconut oil, I repeat, you will not believe your mouth!

Candied Yam/ Sweet Potato

Sweet potatoes are pretty hard to go wrong with, however for Thanksgiving and taking into consideration the nostalgia I have of golden crusted marshmallows atop our sweet potatoes, I wasn’t going to skimp. If this isn’t your thing there are tons of savory sweet potato dishes that are great as well. If you’re a super sweet potato fan you could even have two different dishes. Savory and sweet! I am content with just one. And though I may choose better many other days, that.is not.this.day! The great news!? I was already a master at homemade marshmallows. Did you hear me right? Yes, homemade, white fluffy marshmallows, made with grassfed gelatin, and local honey. Can you believe it? Theyre so easy to make. It’s mind blowing. Just learn from my mistake, let the marshmallows dry a bit on the counter, they wont dissipate into a fluffy glob all over your sweet potatoes. Still Delicious? Well, duh My other top favorite sweet potato dish includes maple syrup, and pecans. To make the marshmallow sweet potatoes, you can use the maple pecan recipe, and instead of the pecan topping just dot your mallows on top and bake until golden. Also, I mean REAL maple syrup, Aunt Jemima ain’t welcome here no mo.

Cranberry Jelly

I sort of feel like most people don’t care for cranberry jelly anymore. I personally love it. And I feel like i’d be a little hurt if cranberry jelly decided not to show up every year. I feel a bit like a broken record, but this too..is.so.easy! Buy a bag of fresh organic cranberries. Dump into a little sauce pan. Pour in some organic sugar/sucanut/rhapadura and water, maybe a zest of orange. and let it cook. Voila, tangy goodness, the perfect addition to smoked turkey and sourdough stuffing. Just saying.

This year I am going to take my cranberry sauce a step further and ferment it. Adding in a nice zang of probiotics with the meal. I found this great recipe. Easy!

Dinner Rolls

For a great soaked, whole grain option, I use my bread recipe, and instead of forming loaves in the last step, I form them into rolls and let rise and bake as the recipe indicates! They sop up gravy and encase turkey fantastically!

Desserts

Almond Roca is a new addition to our Thanksgiving table, and I don’t intend to change that. Easy, fast, and delicious. Pecan pie is probably my favorite pie. And not once have I ever made it with corn syrup. Pumpkin Pie is a classic. And the nuts are great for snacking and also make great gifts!

Well there it is and I hope this list has inspired you to real foodify your thanksgiving table! I admit, our family makes a cherry fluff salad, that I havent taken the time to real foodify. But it’s on my goal list. My kids also love marshmallows. So I want to make a real food marshmallow salad of sorts to add to our menu, tis the season, after all.

What do you have for Thanksgiving Dinner? I’d love to hear favorite dishes and traditions with your family!

Brownies

the good the bad and the ugly

I grew up eating home cooked meals and desserts from scratch instead of out of a box. We still used white flour and sugar and ate out of boxes and cans though, too. Now that I know not only what most of those things have in them, but also the companies they support, it’s a lot easier to avoid them. However, i’d be lying if I said I don’t miss the nights where my dad would bring home 20 frozen chicken pot pies( whaaa, split by 13 people that’s not that much). I’ll never know if it was the msg or the nostalgia of being surrounded by family in a bustling kitchen, that tasted so good.

Since Ive discovered Dr. Weston Price and his book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, and started my journey to real and nourishing food; i’ve been on a mission to revamp all those childhood recipes, actually any recipe I come across and feel the need for. And brownies have been, are and always will be one of my comfort foods. They remind me of my grandparents, they remind me of home and childhood. They remind me of our family reunions and camping trips. They remind me of cross country sleep overs during high school, and making mug brownies in a microwave during college. *shudders* . They were oh so good though.

So it’s only natural with all of my brownie making/tasting experience(box brownies included), I should create my very own original recipe. These babies crinkle on top and sparkle all the way down your esophagus. (I haven’t proved this, but I can feel it.) You’re welcome.

My “cake style brownie” hating “brownie snob” husband approves of these fudge brownies. And the first time I made them he didn’t know they were made with coconut flour. He was just raving.Raving! I tell you no lies! I couldn’t believe it. And the reason I couldn’t believe it is because since we’ve been married(6years) I followed fudge brownie recipe after recipe for him to only tell me they tasted like cake brownies. That’s a lot of years of brownie rejections. It was a tough time in our marriage, but we’ve persevered and beat the odds together. You sugar conscious people(me) want to know the secret? Well I don’t know every brownie secret, but a pretty big one is the sugar. I usually use 1/4 of the sugar that most recipes call for…therefore fudging up all attempts at fudge brownies. Pun intended. Since these have so much sugar, I still usually do cut the sugar, and save the full recipe for extra special hyggelig moments. Make it as you will, but I warned you. For fudge sake…just give it some shugah. Are you for team cake brownie or team fudge brownie? Have you tried this recipe? Let me know in the comments!

Coconut flour fudge brownies

fudgey brownie goodness made with pastured eggs, coconut flour and sucanut. They even crinkle on the top.

Course
Dessert

Cuisine
American

Ingredients

1cup butterpastured

2 cupssucanut/cane sugarorganic

5 eggspastured

1/2tbsppure vanilla extract

1/3cupcoconut flour

3/4cupcocoa or cacoa powder

1tspsea salt

3/4cupchopped nuts (opt)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350. Butter a glass or stone 9x13 baking pan. Melt butter. Mix in sugar. Add eggs one at a time to mix well. Add vanilla extract. Add cocoa, coconut flour and salt to batter and beat with a whisk. Let it sit a few minutes for the coconut flour to absorb the liquid. Add optional nuts. Pour into prepared pan and cook for 20-25 minutes.

Let cool, or eat warm out of pan after kids go to sleep. Note, if eating out of pan while still warm, it is recommended to start in the middle.